[TF2] Are Trade Bots Killing The TF2 Economy?

Many people dislike the rise of bots within the TF2 economy. But is automation really that bad? Lets find out.
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Thanks for watching!

[@Yahiamice]

man i hate how unusual trading has devolved to "ill value ur hat at bot buy orders" nowadays

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

yeah it gets on my nerves a little bit ngl

[@Error-ld3lt]

same it’s a pain trying to sell my unusual when it’s bot buy orders are at 50% of its bp.tf value and everyone wants to pay for 50% because do those buy orders

[@Slendermaster968]

hey! as long as it works :D

[@SQU1RRELLYTF2]

Watching trade bots outbid each other by 1 REF over and over on expensive unusuals does provide some humor though :P

[@Benjamin-ko1fg]

SQU1RRELLY TF2 Hey Squirelly, love your videos!

[@slotzoffuntrue]

Nice, the tf2 economy has reached Rockefeller era monopolizations and work undercutting

[@rebecon]

Slotzoffun It’s a free market with almost no “government” oversight. It is doomed to be increasingly monopolized until it collapses.

[@jackspies444]

@@rebecon fuck i never thought about that lmao

[@oopsiepoopsie2898]

Rebecon it’s funny how free markets need regulation and oversight to work.

[@MannFace51]

Oopsie Poopsie just like in real life, we have to realize it’s all just a very intricate game. A serious game to some, but a game nonetheless.

[@JustinCage56]

@@oopsiepoopsie2898 It's almost as if...

[@SQU1RRELLYTF2]

A+ breakdown on a very interesting topic! Thx for the shout-out too! :D

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

Glad you enjoyed! :)

[@tylerwilliams6767]

squirelly = virtual economist but with godly gameplay

[@TwistedFireX]

Your video wasn’t very good if I’m being honest. You kept repeating the same point like you were trying to reach the 10 minute mark. Keep up the good work!

[@IInferno]

The video in a nutshell: **beep boop i am a robot. I am here to take american jobs.**

[@iCrimzon]

He tried to warn us, but we ignored him

[@scumknight6074]

I_Inferno- Traders: “They took our jobs!”

[@thelegendarycaboose9193]

The robots are going to invade soon

[@Man_Aslume]

They hated soldier because he spoke the truth

[@coalstocking]

bots are best for people who aren't traders and just want the items without waiting.

[@guilhermebmoreira]

Im a trader but the bots are goods in some ways like i want an item now so with the bot i can trade instantly without waiting, but to earn money its better sell itens for real people because you can select the price of the item

[@burnstjamp]

Late, but that's me. I play the game and like cool looking items, but I'm not willing to enter the trading game to spend hours working to earn a few keys, and frankly the most important aspect of unusuals for me is how good they look, not how many keys their worth. I like my nice 14 key dbd airdog (Literal shit tier unusual) way more than my 40 key vivid plasma starboard crusader, since dbd looks great and the airdog works with my loadout. Bots are super convenient for me because I get instant gratification, and I don't have to work through negotiations and wait for people to respond whenever I want to get an item. I'm willing to work with non-bots, especially on 10+ key trades, but if a bot has a cheaper price I'm still gonna go with it

[@masoncaldwell3701]

Controversial opinion: virtual economist and the lock picking lawyer are the same person

[@Marduk710]

dude

[@alperbulut1267]

LOL

[@Leagueminer-ve6iv]

It isn't controversial if it's true

[@stolenshortsword]

omg

[@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire]

See, I realized this about two years back, and moved most of my TF2 investments into items that are either hard to duplicate, like a Strange Top Shelf Revolver/High Roller Medigun (items with

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

Yeah thats really smart.

[@Dogdogdogdog1234]

How do you combat the trade ban on items effectively? (the ban from buying on steam market)

[@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire]

@@Dogdogdogdog1234 You can sell items immediately after you buy them if you sell them back to SCM. Then, cashing out.

[@Dogdogdogdog1234]

@@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire Oh I knew that, now looking at it it seems obvious how you just keep on marketing stuff instead of trading anything at all.

[@radagoon1]

We cant call it trading anymore can we since you cant find any "real" traders instead you find bots trying to save refs.

[@opacopa3585]

bots undercutting each other by 0.11 ref lmao

[@honkhonk8009]

People are treating the fucking game as a real life job. Its a trading game. Nothing else. Bots are the equivalent of having a computer aim for you. Its easy as shit to setup and takes nonexistent effort. Trading bots are litterally on par with hacking. Only reason people like the bots is because unlike most ingame cheaters, trading bots benefit both ways. Trading used to be and is supposed to be where 2 people trade their shit for an agreed price. The fact that tf2 trading has turned into essentially the mannco store but cheaper is just autistic. , it would be in valves best interest to just outright ban bots. Less hackers, less shitty traders. Its a game. If you want to earn "profit" get a real fucking job Jesus christ. You earn 5 keys per hour minimum wage through a job. Its much better than trading and earning 1 key per hour best case scenario.

[@_2know1]

These bots kill low tier traders hope of getting profit

[@radagoon1]

I honestly think of converting all my tf2 items to steam money the future of this games doesnt seem bright :/

[@thebeastkoolaidman]

Go to Vatican or Firepowered trade servers. It's way better than just waiting on someone to take up your offer on BP.TF

[@retr0895]

Bots shouldnt be allowed to trade unusuals.

[@doomslayer8985]

Then it would be hard to price unusuals cause buy orders are made by demand and popularity, bots since 2015 are dominating the market, only unusuals is the best way to profit, low and mid tier are useless

[@compatriot852]

I wish this could be fixed somehow. This hyper inflation of ref kinda sucks.

[@bruhified9999]

bro do you know how expensive haunted metal is

[@poplar6724]

@@thecollegegrad but bro do you know how expensive it is? bro

[@lelsirlel3959]

Its like fucking zimbabwe in the economy!

[@channelunknown5060]

It is simple really. To fix the inflation of ref, we need to destroy all the ref

[@ZER-cr4dm]

They really outdid themselves with that MannVsMachine update

[@belgarano4576]

XD

[@goldfishthedestroyer3233]

I just buy the coolest looking hat. I don’t care if it’s “bad” or “good”.

[@frosteryoutube1551]

Me too lol.

[@jackinblack19]

Goldfish Gaming yeah but that’s just essentially worthless hats, your not trying to trade up. Not the same thing

[@hansleberwurst8825]

@@jackinblack19 Believe it or not, people like these used to stabilize the economy.

[@stolenshortsword]

chaotic neutral

[@themaninblack08]

The only real way to deal with the overcutting scripts is to allow scripts or behavior that take advantage of them. In the actual investment trading world, writing a fundamentally bad trading algorithm tends to get you arbitraged out of existence.

[@jackmoseley4959]

How would you do that, place a sell order for much cheaper than the lowest bot sell then clean it out as soon as it undercuts you?

[@wh1t3st4r5]

The best way to learn more about economy in general is with you

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

:)

[@SubZeroDestruction]

Good video. Hit the nail on the head for pretty much every issue. I still personally think bots should out-right be removed unless they're on their own site, or just given a max amount of items one user could have a bot active on, as to not have every classified page filled with bots, but I doubt we'll ever see such extreme actions taken. Also, #HeavyUpdate2020

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

I like the idea of limiting the number of classifieds a user can have listings on. Zol, for example has 12K listings. It would be great if they had to prioritize and think about their listings instead of spamming listings down on every unusual and letting the overcutting script do the rest.

[@SubZeroDestruction]

@@TheVirtualEconomist That's one of the biggest issues I feel, aside from them existing, and even aside from the overcutting scripts. If they were limited to, at most like 100-200 items, or a least 25-50, then I feel most of the bigger traders would certainly need to consider either focusing on expensive yet slow unusuals, or on fast and cheap low-tier items for their profits. Do that with every bot on BP, then some item pages might actually be filled with just humans again, and would allow new traders to actually have a chance to negotiate trades with pure/items, and maybe get into the higher unusual trades, which would actually be helpful to said unusual owners, since well, there'd be more people who may want X unusual, and can now afford to get it.

[@RoastedToastedPoops]

@@TheVirtualEconomist I hate Zol. He's a fucking prick and I hope his bot gets hacked.

[@zekmoly6064]

it is actually good for low-tier trading because There were useless smissmas cases filling half of my inventory but thanks to a few bots I at least managed to turn them into useful scraps

[@nickman983]

I think a big issue with overcutting scripts is that they can artificially inflate the price of an unusual. I've seen multiple cases where to bots raise the price to the point where no one is willing to buy the item unless it's being quicksold. For example, there have been 2 or 3 orbiting fire conjururs cowls on the market for the last month or two between 23-25 keys. Every time they trade hands it is due to one person giving up and another thinking they can profit off of it. Yet buy order bots are all the way up to 21.2 keys. If the bots weren't constantly one upping each other the price on that hat would be nowhere near what it is currently since seemingly no one is willing to pay it. I've noticed that this is also an issue with unusuals that are "common" but don't trade often for one reason or another. The buy orders act as an echo chamber and the boys start slowly jacking up the price until someone eventually sells. They are then stuck trying to sell an overpriced hat and, unlike a real trader, the bots are often perfectly fine sitting on a hat indefinitely. This whole situation is potentially great for sellers but absolutely miserable for buyers, who are left with the options of either not purchasing the hat they really want, or potentially pay significantly more than what the hat is really worth.

[@Lukas-hb5be]

Can you start another trading series? That would be cool to see how to make profit in 2020 because im gonna start trading soon with 20 keys ( i tried 10 but didnt work out ) Thanks!

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

Unfortunately it's not super likely that I'll do another trade series. However, one of my next videos planned is a low tier trading guide so be on the lookout for that :)

[@danielcurtis1288]

CSGO trading and investing is a much better way to make profit imo. The TF2 market is so messed up that it’s almost impossible to make significant profits that is actually worth your time without having lots of money to begin with

[@adiuparkar]

Hey if you want to start unusual trading with 20 keys, there is a discord server which is owned by backpack.tf mod. They tell you which unusual to buy and how much to sell it for. The membership costs 3 keys. But trust me, you make those keys back very easily. I started with 15 keys in december, got around 170 keys in march end. If you buy the membership, they add you to a private membership channel where they post alerts which are basically links to the unusual which you are supposed to buy and they tell you how much to sell it for and how much profit you will make. No alert is below 3 keys profit. So if you even manage to sell 1 unusual from the alert, you make your fees back. discord.gg/hYdzuRE

[@Manuel-ek2cf]

I started with 10 ref and are doing well How didnt 10 keys work

[@Lukas-hb5be]

Manuel it probably should have worked out but at that point i was very unexpierienced. However i have way more understanding in trading now and actualy i’ll be able to buy some keys today so i can try again :)

[@Mat-sl6tj]

Backpack.tf needs alternate bot buy and sell listing sections, this would be greatly beneficial for both traders and bots because traders can still quickly buy and sell items with bots meaning that the convenience is still there, while also being able to find real people to negotiate with and realistic prices for buy orders. Aka, the safety net/convenience remains while allowing people who are looking to profit to actually profit more than a scrap with every unusual trade...

[@TerDaMix]

Wait, so if a bot makes a high buy order and you sell to them an item you get banned for that, because the bot was buggy? Or did I miss the point with this?

[@costagreek1497]

TerDaMix yes and no, for the DX guy he knew the script would overcut so he maid a buy order for his own hat for hella money but in most cast scenarios you understand correctly

[@doomslayer8985]

Basically price manipulation

[@thetrashmann8140]

As someone who was stuck in low tier trading for well over 2 years DUE TO BOTS I'm kinda biased but I want them gone (got scammed for almost all of my items and so on and so forth)

[@WakoDoodle]

(recap on key's from my perspective, skip if you want) When I started tf2 in 2011 keys were around 3-5 refined Metal. On average around 4. Most hats were 3 refined too (which is why the stout shakko for 2 refined joke came to be, because it was the cheapest hat by 1 ref). Last time I checked in 2019 a key was 53-54 refined. So... I mean they aren't helping. (Fix idea) What we need is another golden wrench-like event. The first and only one had a huge lack of metal because everyone was crafting them to get a wrench! Less metal means lower supply and because you need metal to try for a golden wrench it's in high demand. -Supply : + Demand = metal getting more valuable; so the key price would drop as a result.

[@Humanoidmp]

Wako Doodle golden duped shovel

[@DoodleNoodle26]

As a low tier trader who is basically ready to get into unusual trading (after trading up to ~10 keys), bots and marketplace were absolutely vital for getting me up to here. Especially due to the fact that bots were really confused on what to do during that period where craft hats rose in price a few months ago.

[@acomp1932]

Hey Ben! I have recently stumbled across your vids and I just wanted to say you have great content. As a new trader I'm working my way up slowly to a few keys (currently on 1 key and 14 ref. I would recommend you to make a low-tier trading guide as I think we are one of your biggest demographic. I also watched your 2016 keys to riches story and was wondering if you could do a 2020 update on it since a lot has changed from back then (key prices, unusual prices, etc.). Anyways keep up the great work!

[@Bruh-jo4lb]

Can you make a sort of status of the TF2 economy video? With things like the crate depression, I’ve heard that low tier unusual trading is much more difficult. I’ve also heard that 1st gen effects are more undesirable. All this is pretty confusing, so if we can have our economic advisor help us out that’d be awesome.

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

This is a good idea. If I don't make a video like this I will make sure to include "state of the economy" like stuff in future videos (e.g. a part of trading guides)

[@Bruh-jo4lb]

Cool, thanks. I think that it would definitely be very helpful.

[@Bruh-jo4lb]

I also have a question about trading. How is the general price of an item determined. In many older trading series, they just look at bp.tf price and take that as the price. But now, I feel like people determine the price in other ways. With the bots being there, I feel like they can change it a lot. I don’t really understand all of this so if you could clarify that would be very helpful.

[@birchpc]

There's a ridiculous gap between the prices of low tiers and high tiers nowadays. This is because bots compete with each other constantly on rare desirable effects aswell as miscs while bots don't compete on anything else causing the prices to go down. There is way too big of a gap, and in my opinion the sheer fact that a low tier unusual went from 4:1ing for a bonzo straight to 20:1ing for a bonzo is ridiculous. Don't blame that on the crate depression, besides when the scare was still occuring there is virtually no competition on most unusuals above 20 keys. People now just price based on bot buy orders who's profit margins are so minimal (seriously? 2 key difference on a 120 key unusual?) that it not only devalues the vast majority of unusuals, but makes trying to sell anything for pure nearly impossible if you dont sell at close to bot buy orders, and god help you if a bot is selling that unusual, because they've probably listed it at %20 under backpack.tf price. Not to mention the monopoly that bots have in the trading scene now, it's getting incredibly out of hand. TL;DR - I think scripts and bots should not be allowed for unusuals buying or selling, but everything else is ok since what I mentioned earlier either doesn't apply or it's better to have stable prices on some non-unusual items.

[@scrreeeboi3421]

I got the 291 key unusual, nice, I got it from random crate, now I know the value of it who wants to trade, I'll take a really good strange set of these items specifically, Baby faces blaster on it's own, tide turner, claidhemor (or whatever its called) and Ali babas wee booties as a set or a scunt loadout (force a nature, crit-a-cola and Boston basher)

[@rockez09]

In trading games, all roads lead to an auction house. If the developer did not implement one then the trading community will eventually get as close to one as the game allows in their quest for automation and convenience. AHs disincentivise (or outright eliminate) manual trading, and drive prices to the rock bottom. TF2 got its AH when traders synthesized sites like backpack.tf with trade bots. If you still trade manually, it's only getting worse from here.

[@ict5126]

I'm not really a trader at all, but recently on Marketplace.tf I was trying to get some money out of an unusual I bought a while back for ~$300 I was trying to quicksell because I needed the money but I didn't want to sell to the lowest offers so I slowly dropped the price down to around $150 some other guy was also selling the hat for like $270 at the time but they seemingly price matched me every time I changed mine. I got a bit of financial help before the hat sold so since I didn't have to sell I removed the listing. What I guess I can assume was a bot sold that hat for half-off days later

[@Elliotsnothere]

Great video. Imo there is another integral reason for the demise of the market which is that the ammount of players who want specific unusuals for the sake of owning a certain dream hat has gone down to almost zero. This results in the fact that the only people interested in buying an unusual are ones who intend to resell it for profit. As there is nobody who actually wants to buy it for the sake of purchase, they will never reach their full price and inevitably drop in value over time

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

An interesting counterpoint: In my opinion, the amount of people who want to buy items to keep hasn't changed. Instead, the number of unique unusuals has skyrocketed. There are now so many options in terms of hats/taunts/weapons that the chance someone just so happens to want to buy your unusual for full pure is so much less than it used to be. For this reason, more unusuals that ever before will "never reach their full price and inevitably drop in value over time".

[@norahsnewgroove]

Bots are fine, buyer satisfaction is more important than profit. It's perfectly possible to trade with them present, I've been doing it for years at this point and not once have I thought, "these dang bots are making it IMPOSSIBLE to sell this", profit whores are just annoyed that it's setting a solid price floor on items, and that you can't just charge an insane amount because it's 1/1 on market or whatever. If a person is finding it genuinely impossible to trade without a bot, then they should invest in one.

[@AAAA-cn2qk]

11:38 What? So if you sell to the highest bidder, you get banned?

[@limecatcher1482]

i was on scrap.tf when this video showed up on my feed

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

:)

[@AshleySOAD]

limecatcher limecatcher

[@Simon-cz2bq]

lol i traded with you before, you added me on steam

[@user-qf4du7lc4z]

hey thevirtualeconomist? i dare you to make a video where you try to buy a really expensive unusual/australium weapon using only scrap metals. no reclaimed, no refined, and no keys. just scrap metal

[@ezrac704]

13:11 i like how the 13 minute, 14 seconds video by squirrelly is shown at 13;14.

[@colinle467]

Just want to thank you, I re-started trading 1 year ago and I made over 500 keys profit on my journey

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

damn, that's insane! Congrats!

[@lespy8637]

How

[@LordLux]

how

[@Miller_Davus]

Luck always loses to skill.

[@metalblizzard6024]

I mean, the real question, is how much do bots facilitate trading? Non-bot trading can be really tedious.

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

That is what I attempt to answer in the video :)

[@Vision444]

The reason why the bot owners are always benefitted in the rules is probably because they’re the ones running backpack.tf lol. They have a monopoly in the market, and they own the auction(...trading?) house

[@xavis7617]

So we eat the rich?

[@iCrimzon]

Pretty much, the incredibly rich are the ones in the "group" and are almost untouchable, tfw tf2 is like real life

[@veroist_]

Basically capitalist fucks, rockefellers of TF2

[@Mucy_DE]

Not really. None of the mods themselves on BP.tf participate in this practice. Only 1 of the bot owners branched out to create a new site competing with Scrap.tf, StnTrading.Eu and Tradeit.gg as a 4th large scale unusual "deals" site but a lot of the times they don't actually give out good deals, they just undercut at prices at which no one, including me would buy. The owner in question is Zol, his site is called quicksell.store (not to be associated with MannCo.store and it's competing deals site MannCo.trade, both owned by SexySparta which has given bad prices and has been uncompetitive for years now so it's irrelevant p much) On the Backpack Discord we occasionally already call out people with scripts and I was considering going for a full scale community outcry over the coming months but we'll see how far that goes. Either way Autoscripts need some tweaking and buy orders need stabilization or else it's game over for most hats.

[@Lolinatorishere]

want overcutting scripts to be fair just remove the fact that you can get banned for manipulating them and they would dissapear over night

[@Lolinatorishere]

also pro tip for low tier traders Find a niche and capitalize on it i found mine in painted hats and low tier low crafts also good thing to know is every scam method so you dont get easily fooled (way to many of my trader friends have fallen to those bitches)

[@blorenge]

a bot started selling my 15 key unusual for 13, and now i can't sell it :(

[@cripstopheriii3509]

ok so I haven’t played much TF2 in a while and I haven’t traded since early 2014, and I just checked key prices and I’m completely blown away. 54.4 ref for a key?

[@dontlookatmyvideoREE]

True back then it was only around 10 ref or something now it's literally impossible.

[@wowisntitanamazinglyamazin9550]

Ikr? I was the same way

[@ahri6333]

A friend of mine stole my Unusuals like 3 years ago or more and I just wanted to start again this week but it's impossible to get profit... Bots everywhere, Keys are pretty expensive. I need help, I got like 97 refs and some cosmetics ☹️

[@halfpace1462]

Sell all your weapons and get 2 keys. Trade off taunts and go to trade servers. People don't give 2 shits for overpaying a bit do do that and repeat. After get some really cheap unsusuals.Worked out for me

[@ahri6333]

@@halfpace1462 I will start doing that, thank you very much

[@Eeveeening]

@@halfpace1462 I have a prof ks fire glazed revolver and no one really wants to trade with me oof.

[@Maukiki]

When mann vs machine comes real in other modes

[@karrolvytauto5615]

When you tryna sell Your item and a guy that is offline is offering more than normal for ur item but he cant respond gUeSs ilL TrAdE iT tO a BoT

[@karlovisttimes8271]

when you want to buy a craft hat and for some reason the bots are overcutting eachother

[@WEndro333]

Bots, be it in trading or cheating form, are absolute cancer.

[@jarnine9803]

I spent a few years to get up around 700 keys, every day i have to rise my buy orders because of them 4 people on around 30 dream hats that im looking at getting one of them, I dont mind paying full or even more on them types of hats.But if a script bot gets it im happy that he paid the same or more then i would of. and theres a good chance that it will take a long time to resell for the price thay paid.When its a hat that i would use and not want to resell.

[@DACITYOFDAHOOD]

Wow you are alive?

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

yes :)

[@joestop2364]

Ive watched TheVirtualEconomist for years now, and i only just look at how many subscribers he has and it baffles me how he only has 53k subscribers! He seriously deserves way more subs for his content

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

means the world to me to see comments like this :)

[@Lykrast]

As someone who's far from ever touching an unusual, I agree that the bots that sell normal taunts are sooooo convenient. Taunts and cheap hats are the only things I buy keys for like once in a while and having an easy and convenient way to get the taunts I want out of those keys makes me really happy. Though what you said about the unusual trading does sound a bit worrisome for people that are concerned.

[@RobertFJr]

We need to have an operation undercut all bots out of existance. At least for unusuals and other high tier items. Or people should start completely ignoring bots when it comes to those trades.

[@mikhailskvoznyak5551]

Hey Virtual Economist, can you please make a video about how to value killstreaks and fabricators?

[@zahirbashir4671]

I quit unusual trading since it was all just "Bot's are buying for dirt cheap so that's what i'm buying at"

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

I really wish people were not like that. LIke I said in the video, maybe someday bots will have more even buy orders, but for now it does suck.

[@honkhonk8009]

People are treating the fucking game as a real life job. Its a trading game. Nothing else. Bots are the equivalent of having a computer aim for you. Its easy as shit to setup and takes nonexistent effort. Trading bots are litterally on par with hacking. Only reason people like the bots is because unlike most ingame cheaters, trading bots benefit both ways. Trading used to be and is supposed to be where 2 people trade their shit for an agreed price. The fact that tf2 trading has turned into essentially the mannco store but cheaper is just autistic. , it would be in valves best interest to just outright ban bots. Less hackers, less shitty traders. Its a game. If you want to earn "profit" get a real fucking job Jesus christ. You earn 5 keys per hour minimum wage through a job. Its much better than trading and earning 1 key per hour best case scenario.

[@xensakura595]

Missed your channel.

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

now it's back :)

[@johntenconnary144]

the problem with bots is buy orders, because anyone can make them, bots can essentially offer 55% of some god-tier unusual, and then have people price your hat a 1-2 keys above buy orders, meaning there could be literally no profit on certain items

[@pashqa816]

I only love bots when they buy something for full price

[@multiple_mods3615]

If you boil this down to its main points, its literally just "its cool if your buying but sucks when your selling"

[@wudderbottles]

Thanks for posting a video!

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

np!

[@HliasKoloki8as]

Wow man i was wathing your videos from 2016 (tf2 keys trading).. really cool videos man keep it up!!!

[@bonopo]

i made a bot that takes advantage of the bots. It scans the steam market for all unusuals, and checks how much bots will pay and then shows me the ones that make profit. Sometime there have been profits of over 70 keys in one hat

[@ahri6333]

How do you do that? Only for unusuals?

[@pogchamp1184]

I'm new to trading and I litterally cannot believe yall had keys worth 2/3 ref, I'm desperately trying to get enough ref for one key rn

[@gatomeong]

bruh same, 3 days and i finally got a key. im tried so hard but i finally managed to get a key

[@gatomeong]

when i first played tf2 at 2017, i thought 30refs for a key is cheap. and now its 58ref l m a o

[@icecream1454]

Me trying to get a good amount of profit The seller: *I cOuLd jUsT sEll iT foR a bOt*

[@Simon-cz2bq]

Ice Cream why would he sell it to you for a cheaper price though?

[@icecream1454]

@@Simon-cz2bq idk. If I remember correctly he was selling his "HHH cape" (I forgot) but he wants my Kazotzy kick and conga for it

[@Simon-cz2bq]

F2P Gibus Noob yea thats him still losing when he could get it sold for a better price

[@icecream1454]

@@Simon-cz2bq ok here why. Katz kick + conga = more than the HHH cape by 10ref. I offer him my Katz which is a 50ref profit sure that's a lot but I added a key so I get 5 ref profit(a lil profit works). He declines because the bot buys it for more than that and he said "I could sell it for more from bots"

[@mohameda.6227]

i think valve should set a price on refined like the key, so you can buy it on the in-game store so valve can control key price and set it to 10-15 ref maybe

[@DontStopMeGaLo]

I don't think, people would actually buy refs on the in-game store, since you can obtain them due crafting

[@Simon-cz2bq]

DontStopMeGaLo they would

[@mohameda.6227]

well good thing is there is probably an update coming and key price is going to drop , it's at 53 ref noe

[@wowisntitanamazinglyamazin9550]

@@mohameda.6227 how do you know key price is gonna drop?

[@AxelTravix]

I love the idea of trading and i hope to trade one day... too bad i only started playing post-jungle inferno and never experienced the game in its prime

[@ricuz1]

I coded myself a tf2 trade bot a couple of years ago and used it for a while for really low tier items (under a key) and back then I started to witness the birth of auto undercutting/overcutting bots. (Axle's bot for example) They automatically overcut buy orders and undercut sell orders by a scrap (0.11ref). It doesn't seem much but they keep over/undercutting once with the other and by doing that they reduce the window of profit for everyone else. Even if I could I never did that because I could clearly see it was bad for the whole economy. The only easy solution would be for backpack.tf to ban auto cutting scripts.

[@honkhonk8009]

Or add a delay for when you can relist and add a certain increment of change for items so you cant do dumb shit like undercutting

[@axities]

I dislike bots on items of value over $5 (or like any unusual and higher), just for the simple reason that the economy is fun and people can communicate to each other to reach an agreement on an item and then trade. Back in 2013, when i started trading, adding people and asking them "hey, would you take these two items for this" was something i over looked back then. It was a fun time, which i wish i could go back to but now everything is just "yeah there is a bot for that" that made no sense i just don't have no where else to say my dislikes for these bots and such. I just want an economy of PEOPLE back ;_; None of that made no sense, sorry

[@lastlombaxx]

I gave up trading on tf2 a while ago because of bots. It wasnt something i was enjoying doing anymore, 0 human interaction, 0 bargaining it was just the same old one scrap profit.

[@sirknave4794]

What is your favorite type of bread

[@Lukas-hb5be]

Garlic bread is the best

[@Mrng_wood]

Sourdough

[@pootis7368]

Sandvich

[@dontlookatmyvideoREE]

Baguette

[@DankDimensionMemes]

Right now bots are quite literally going for 0.1 key profits on 60 key hats.

[@hamadded7353]

I'll never use bots because I want to be in charge of ever single trade and dont want to lose keys if a change to the economy suddenly happens

[@Humanoidmp]

The ref-to-key price is ridiculous nowadays! Refs fall so fast that it’s almost impossible to trade up from few refs to a single key.

[@syn-theo6749]

As a proud Low Tier Trader, my opinion is rather mixed, on one hand, it's convenient, but making profit takes hours, and i'm not even that invested in trading as a whole. And i have a question: I have barely seen bots (let alone actual traders) on the Skin Market since it's inception, if i were to keep collecting, where should i look?

[@tylerbreau4544]

I don't really know about the bots; but, yea I do think the key-metal ratio is problematic. I was never much of a trader myself; but, there was a time when I made a good solid attempt in trading. I was having some decent success as I started very little (not even enough to consider buying an unusual) and worked my way up. At the time, I think keys were around 20-25 ref. My strategy was really simple. Buy things for a little lower than their suggested prices according to the trading websites and try to sell them for a little higher. A "little" was relative to their overall value. If the item was worth a couple of ref, I'd be looking for like 1 rec profit margin. If it was 10 ref or 15 ref, I'd be looking for a ref or two profit margin. I managed to work my way up to around 10 keys by making profit small amounts of profit within metal. This was a slow process and took some a considerable amount of time; but, it was paying off. Of course this strategy made it hard to trade with other traders since the profit margin was very small, on the plus side, a lot of my trades were also considered fair since I wasn't doing what I saw a LOT of other people doing: Refusing anything that has less than like 30% or 50% profit margin. These guys in particular I always found annoying and if I were to ever try to trade with these guys I always felt like I was getting scammed. Honestly this is one of the reasons why I took strategy I did: I didn't like the idea of doing to other people what made me felt like I was getting scammed; but, enough of that. After a while I stopped trading; because, it was taking too much time and I wanted to play the game. I was never much of a business person. So to wrap this up. I made some nice profit; but, what if I did this like 10 years earlier. When key prices were around 5 ref? I would have had 4 times more keys. Around 10 keys would be around 40 keys. Now of course prices of items fluctuates over time; but, at the end of the day... If I had the same strategy as I did then when keys were around 5 ref, I'd still have a lot more opportunities right?

[@singto_9507]

I don’t think bots are a problem to be honest. It makes trade fast and efficient, if the buy orders aren’t the same there’s most likely a reason. Maybe the hat is less desirable or such. And sure, overcutting scripts are annoying but it’s not really a big deal; the bot owner just has more keys at his disposal. This is just my opinion though, would love to hear what you have to say.

[@honkhonk8009]

Aimbots are good too. People like the convenience of having a good teammate that can efficiently land shots and do great for their game! I know its not even playing the fucking game and for most people it negatively impacts gameplay but that's alright, I feel good about hacking. Its really good for the teams KDR despite that other team suffering because of it, fuck them lol I dont care because im not them. Its a Fucking game, its not real life. If you want to make money you get a real fucking job its not hard lmao. Trading is literally just another tf2 game mode and people are completely fine with having bots play the game for them.

[@gbogpav7252]

Well the tf2 economy is now fucked over by a source leak

[@marte9346]

I guess you could find some exceptions? I mean, I won't blame a bot to have a buyorder of 15 key on a 30 keys hat if there are like 4 persons selling for 20.

[@ruttokyrpa3472]

They should make Refined metal marketale, you coulb get 3 ref for 6cent. Crafting 10 hats for 60cents sounds fun

[@fivecent1413]

its not work like this

[@honkhonk8009]

I used to think the bots were alright but now seeing how people fucking undercut shit in unusual trading and how garbage bots make it its just sad

[@ZER-cr4dm]

Let's be real the Crate depression broke the economy to a point of no returning, almost everyone has an Unusual now thus breaking the purpose of buying unusuals, I dont have one but because some people got profit from that even getting Unusuals that cost 100 keys why would you buy or trade Unusuals now? Unusuals are not that unusual anymore it only made Unusual weapons and taunts expensive

[@birchpc]

bruh u don't know shit about the economy

[@maybe_wise]

bots shouldn't be able to put any listing on illiquid items because they make trading illiquid items annoying

[@impulse4079]

Unusual trading is so difficult because of how bots price things. Having buy orders at 50% of the price is basically a price suggestion.

[@daano50letter36]

Glad to see you upload man. I missed you.

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

:)

[@yumeretta]

there's something worse than trade bots... people who take backpack classified listings as gospel and lowball for stupid reasons ah yes, tell me more about how my strange pro ks sandman with team shine and fire horns isn't worth 2.50 keys despite the level of demand those effects have all because it's a melee weapon i'm a bit salty if you can't tell

[@Luciditation]

this was a great video dude! love it

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

glad you enjoyed!

[@xavierseah6944]

Honestly it has become a whole lot harder to gain profit selling low tier items on bp.tf than it used to. Players who do not have the ability or wish to sink in money into tf2 to get a head start in trading will find it extremely difficult to even trade to get an unusual, and a low tier one at that. Indeed the increase of the price of keys has resulted in this, but I feel that the increase of the key prices was largely due to bots buying keys at higher prices compared to what the average price is. This is just my opinion but honestly, the cons of bot heavily outweigh their benefits in the long run. Sure you may be able to get your items fast and straight away, but at the cost of standardising the increased or decreased price set by the highest buying or lowest selling bot. I'd love to hear everyone's opinion on this.

[@honkhonk8009]

Aimbots are good too. People like the convenience of having a good teammate that can efficiently land shots and do great for their game! I know its not even playing the fucking game and for most people it negatively impacts gameplay but that's alright, I feel good about hacking. Its really good for the teams KDR despite that other team suffering because of it, fuck them lol I dont care because im not them. Its a Fucking game, its not real life. If you want to make money you get a real fucking job its not hard lmao. Trading is literally just another tf2 game mode and people are completely fine with having bots play the game for them.

[@xavierseah6944]

@@honkhonk8009i picked up trading as a hobby, not a way to earn profit, and have stopped for a long time now. I understand that it is just another part of tf2, just for fun. Definitely a good majority of people are fine with this, but I'd like to hear other opinions apart from mine on it.

[@therobotengineer9834]

In my opinion, I think that as long as bots are outside of unusual and high price items, I have no problems with bots.

[@pierrec.2241]

Hey, what about a video about how to start trading in 2020 ?

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

You are a mind reader. Unless anything changes, that is my next video. :)

[@pierrec.2241]

@@TheVirtualEconomist omg dude ! I am so excited ! I bet your audience will blow up. The original keys to riches made me go into trading ! PyroJoe is starting another Rags to Riches though...

[@karlovisttimes8271]

@@TheVirtualEconomist epic

[@xboxhaslag_69]

I’d say yes, bots are literally the only way I can trade anything, nobody trades on trade survers

[@royarkes7539]

My 2 cents about bots. Bad for business who don't use them, good for consumers. Overcutting scripts are cancer and either get banned for using them or can't get banned for super easily exploiting it their buy orders. It is THEIR responsibility ~ Bot owner trader.

[@Deniswizard]

I know that this video is about the trading bot but i feel so annoying when you dont play how medic should be play Medic is supposed to sacrifice himself so that your teammates will love you and respect you, im always sacrifice my self even if i dont get respect

[@viket8316]

i prefer trade bots because if price increase in something they need be updated for change that price allowing you get profit from them

[@aallfik11]

So, I guess it's not a good time to get back into trading (or even buying 10 keys to start unusual trading)?

[@snake_maybe_is_funny]

right now i’m trading with bots just so i can get the hang of this trading stuff

[@snake_maybe_is_funny]

since i’m new to trading

[@AlexFroster]

he finally made a video! Thanks CO-VID19!

[@TheVirtualEconomist]

haha you know that's what happened :)

[@AlexFroster]

@@TheVirtualEconomist I've love the video though, and as a bot owner myself, although there being some bias, I can come to agree with all the points you've made. Hopefully we can see another video soon (it can literally be anything and people will freak out dude)

[@MisterM4n]

Trader's killed it a long time ago with keys and such, but of course that's just my bitter perspective on trading and from losing hundreds of dollars on steam market shit. Anyway have fun trading and a good day to you all reading this

[@legofan3k55]

one problem i have with trading bots is that its almost impossible to begin trading by starting with low tier hats

[@migurt2151]

here in 2022... Refined's down $0,02... This is so sad

[@MichaelJohnson-uo3ef]

The main thing is this, the amount of players who play TF2 are low. The amount that care about cosmetics are lower, and the amount of players who even know about scrap to refined to keys and up trading is even lower. No one cares is the TF2 economy shuts down right now because the vast majority of people just play the damn game.

[@lastlombaxx]

Tf2 player count is low? Whatcha smoking? There are a lot of traders, its just that one out of the five traders nowdays have 5 bots running

[@egorence2149]

​@@lastlombaxxnext level copium

[@casesuit]

Wow. There are actually people out there who care more about the economy than the actual game? They propably spend more time on fucking trading than actually playing TF2. Like come on, don't treat the game like it's a real life job or something.

[@laszlozsolt8597]

Make a video about the new quicksells which has been made popular by youtubers (buying under b/o or b/o price).It will slowly crash trading, based on the amount of cashouts due the frustration of traders it is really happening.